Moz + Bitly = More Link Data

URL shortener Bitly and search and social software company Moz have announced a partnership in which Bitly will power Moz’s tools to “discover, score and display inbound links from across the Internet.”

The announcement promised Moz users “a clear and complete understanding of who is linking to any web site and how relevant or valuable those links are for the brand based on the number and frequency of clicks.”

The Bitly data is already live.

“The Bitly click dataset is hands down the broadest and most authoritative available to anyone looking for information on how their content and brand is performing across the web,” Moz’s co-founder Rand Fishkin said of the partnership. “Marketers armed with these insights are able to build campaigns that are designed to optimize attention through content.”

Prior to the collaboration, Moz used Twitter for link data to rank relevance. Now, Bitly’s data will provide Moz users with inbound link data from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and more.

“Brand marketers using Bitly are also able to identify recently created URLs and links within seconds and highlight the most clicked content for effective campaign planning and testing,” the announcement said.

On its website, Bitly touted it shortens more than 1 billion links per month, and processes more than 6 billion clicks on those links within that same time period.

Access to that information is just one reason Bitly’s CEO Mark Josephson can say that “Bitly owns a unique view of how links are shared across the internet.”

He added, “We’re excited to put this into action with Moz so their clients can better understand how content and links are shared across the Web.”